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Of course not, unless RTD is crazy. Ok, maybe he is a crazy guy either way. And I mean this as more of a compliment than as an insult.

[Quote by: joereform]

The Doctor has always been the constant in the show, and Rose certainly isn't the typical TV companion we are used to, but the show has always been about both the Doctor and his companions. The other TARDIS passengers are certainly more than animated props (well, other than K9 and Kamelion, perhaps...). Did you feel the same way about Jo or Sarah Jane or Ace?

Now don't get me wrong, I like(d) Rose. She's gotta be up there in my favorites along with the other girls you mentioned. And I liked getting to know more about her, but after a while it began to grate on me.

After Rose got her wrist slapped (or should have) after the debacle that was Father's Day (I'm not saying the episode itself was a debacle, I mean the situation in the story and the whole messing with the fabric of time) I would have thought she had learned her lesson. But as I was watching Rise of the Cybermen for the first time and she was yet again defying the Doctor by insisting on going of to find her alternate father, I was like, "Okay, this chicky's got to go." If I were the Doctor I would have been extremely annoyed. She's my companion, I need to be able to trust her to do the right thing and not muck about. She's doing it again, like she did before, and like Adam before her, put herself and her own selfish needs before those of others (and the space/time continum).

Now of course it was necessary for the progression of the story and obviously the odd companion wandering off thing is an essential part of D.Who, I'm just saying...

But I digress - Sure we got to learn more about Jo.G, Sarah.J, and Ace, they were not just props (all the time), but did you ever meet any more of their Earthly friends and family? (If you're counting UNIT over and over again, I can handle that) Did we constantly go back to their original homes or their old Jobs? (Again, UNIT asisde). In the end, I am totally fine with the exploring and developing a companion's character, etc. I just don't want it rammed down my throat or to completely dominate the Doctor's supposed "universe-wide" travels.

[Quote by: joereform]

[Quote by: The Bachelor] And that whole Ghostbusters thing got me a little worried. I started having flashbacks of Love & Monsters. The Doctor looked retarded and Rose sounded ridiculous. Looked like a deleted scene to me.

The "B"

Would you delete scenes of the Second Doctor playing his recorder or cross-dressing? Scenes of the Fourth Doctor offering jelly babies? Would you CGI out the celery stick worn on the Fifth Doctor's lapel for three years? The Doctor's whimsical nature has been more or less a fixture for the entire run of the series, expressing itself moreso in some incarnations than others. The problem with "Love and Monsters" wasn't the Doctor acting silly. It was of the scriptwriter watching a little too much Benny Hill before sitting down to write.

--Joe

All those things you mentioned from the classics I would never take out. I love 'em all. And I have no problem at all the The Doc's whimsical nature either. In fact, I tend to really, really enjoy David Tennant's interpretation of the doctor. When for instance, while speaking, he sometimes trails off and starts talking to himself. I loved in this episode, Army of Ghosts, when he takes off down the corridor in Torchwood and heads in the wrong direction before turning around. I loved his 3D glasses (however, more about that later).

And the whole Ghostbusters bit, maybe it was in the script and maybe it wasn't, but when I go back and watch that scene, it almost looks like just something David Tennant, or someone decided to do spontaneously on set, between takes, with a camera still running. And then someone else decided, "Hey, why don't we splice that into the final cut?" The way it's just so premeditated: the Doctor is just sitting all crouched and hunched over there, waiting for Roes's cue, and the way you can just see in Billie's face that she is resisting cracking up, anticipating what is about to happen.

And by the Doctor seeming retarded, I mean he does not seem on par with David Tennant's usually brilliant interpretation of the Doctor's whimsical nature. It just came out as pretty campy to me. In my mind, I could envision other ways you could have still done the same thing or played off of the same joke and just made it fit better overall.

But alas yes, brilliance and acceptance is in the eye of the beholder, as we all know from the now infamous split-decision over the likes of Love & Monsters.

[Quote by: psibob] So since RTD in the commentary says that the 3-D glasses are important to the story next week, what does everyone think there purpose is?

Maybe something to do with the Genesis Ark....

psibob

Yes I had my suspicions about my glasses as I watched this episode for the first time.

But man-o-man, they needed to post a quasi-spoiler alert on that audio commentary. They let spill out quite a lot of hints and nuggets (more so than usual) about Who & T.Wood I didn't really want to know about yet.

Oh why can't I be like a normal person and not spend so much time immersing myself in all things Who, avoiding spoilers at every turn in places like the commentaries and forums like this and enjoy the show the way the rest of the masses do

I mean, now I wish I hadn't even watched the teaser for Doomsday, granted I don't know what's inside, but I shouldn't even know what a "Genesis Ark" is or that it even extis yet.

[Quote by: BadWolf]So the Doctor is actually right. In this period of the 21st Century; when presented with a hand held particle beam weapon, we should not have it!

Sorry but the BBC ran a ins and outs of DW science last week and pointed out that the Doctors said quite a few times over the years - in this past season Tennents said it twice if I'm right - that mankind in X century, generally either the 20th or 21st, hasn't got or hasn't got access to particle based weapons technology and as the BBC pointed out the Doctor is wrong we do have particle based weapons technology either as lasers, which are fairly large and cumbersome, or weapons system based in microwave technology which is more like alteration of the state of particles from a distance. The USA's piece of kit, which they plan to deploy within the next few years in places such as Iraq and Afganistan is mounted on a humvee, but the Russian variation, which they sidelined because of budget constraints back in the old USSR days and which they've de-mothballed because the US is about to deploy a system, was carried by a lone soldier and looked not that much different from a flamethrower... so even your misquote that its got to be hand held, which the Doctors never said because the BBC have only made him say 'particle technology' and not something of a particular size, is technically wrong because we already have particle based weapons technology.

Sadly the microwave tech doesn't look very impressive in use because it doesn't kill people. Instead what it does is completely incapacitate and disorientate the targets (the US system works over a greater area whereas it seems the Russian version is more personel) meaning you just simply tie wrap their hands and move along to the next bunch of goons who want sorting out.

Also the USA is working on armour not that much different from the Dalak's active armour which destroys projectile based weapons before they hit their target, something brought up to speed because of the problems with roadside bombs and reaction times in places such as Iraq... I wonder if the Daleks will have to invade the USA because Uncle Sam nicked their technology

You are rogue elements... You are incompatible... You will be... Deleted!

I agree that the Genesis Ark probably (hopefully) has something to do with Davros. But perhaps this is the most obvious conclusion, and they'll throw us a curve and have it be something else. In TPotW, The Doctor asked how the Daleks survived the Time War, and the Emperor Dalek says that they survived because of him, and he was able to survive the Time War because he fell through time (or something to that effect...) If Bad-Wolf-Rose did, in fact, wipe the Daleks from Time and Space, then continuity could still hold true. Since the Emperor Dalek fell through time, maybe the same happened to Davros, or Davros could have done this intentionally and used it as a means of escape, if he saw the Daleks were nearly defeated in the Time War, and managed to survive in the Void Ship. With the Emperor Dalek presumably gone, Davros would be the last pure Kaled genetic tissue, and now the time has come to emerge back into our universe and re-populate it with pure Daleks, and not the pseudo-human-Daleks described in TPotW. This is why the Ark must be protected at all costs. I know that the Davros rumors heated up at the end of Series 1, and turned out to be false...but hopefully we won't be duped twice.

While we're talking about alternate universes and passing between them, anybody ever consider that the Cybus-Cybermen's universe might not have had a Time War, and that there is an alternate-Gallifrey, alternate-Time Lords, and perhaps even an alternate-Doctor?

Although the story possibilities would be limitless, I personally hope they leave the reality crossing to the Cybermen and Mickey's band of Cyber-hunters. To me, 9 times out of 10, TV shows/films that deal with alternate realities are just easy cop-outs for writers.

but why would they "introduce" Davros at the last 45 minutes of the series? Unless we are going to have a serious cliffhanger for the end? I mean, your options would be to destroy Davros to have an end to the situation or have him escape to fight another day... seems like a waste of a GREAT bad guy to introduce him at the end like that...

[Quote by: Magpie] Wait a minute... this just occured to me - how is showing cybermen in the teaser to an episode called "rise of the cybermen" stealing the momentum of there being cybermen in that episode? surely you'd then be stuck arguing that the episode name itself was a spoiler?

Yeah, I disagree with the name, too. There's precedence throughout the classic era, but there's also divergence. I think "The invasion" and "Earthshock" were more powerful to me than any other Cyberstories because, thankfully, the first time I saw them both I had literally no idea Cybermen were going to be involved.

However, to be sure, the BBC weren't going to miss the opportunity to clearly market this as the return of the Cybermen. So, fine, "Rise of the Cybermen" it is.

Nevertheless, where MacRae and Harper miss a beat is in giving us the entire concept of the Cybermen in that teaser. You knew everything from that first few minutes. Crippled maniac? Check. He's the creator of the Cybermen? Check. The Cybermen are humanoid and silver? Yep. The Cyberman is a cyborg? Again, yes. What does the "C" logo stand for that I've seen on every Radio Times cover? Oh, it's the company logo of the crazy guy in the chair. The Cybermen's offensive power? Displayed in the first frames.

No suspense, no drama, no reveal. The reinvention of the Cybermen was all over including the shooting—by the main titles.

"I think of myself as ambitious in casting terms, and I know that Bonnie [Langford] has the potential to make the part totally unirritating . . ." — JNT, 1986

We aren't. And that would have been an okay way to start. Show us more about him, that's cool. But you really didn't need a Cyberman in frame in the teaser to do that.

The episode could have started so many other ways. Two that come to mind are

a) moving the initial TARDIS scene to the teaser. This is probably my favorite option. End it on the discover of the little advert of Pete Tyler. This makes even more sense if you view all four episodes as one single story—the introduction and denouement all revolve around Pete, which is in many ways the point of the damned exercise more than the Cybermen.

b) introducing the Preachers in the pretitle. Have an examination of their struggle, and you effectively introduce Cybus industries and its opposition right from the start. You don't need Cybermen at the start to whet your whistle, and you get a way to introduce Ricky after a bit of fanfare, leading straight into the credits.

"I think of myself as ambitious in casting terms, and I know that Bonnie [Langford] has the potential to make the part totally unirritating . . ." — JNT, 1986

Tardis scene in the teaser?? Do that, and we'd miss out on the lovely bit of interaction between The Doctor, Rose, and Mickey. Moreover, not everybody sees the teasers. (oh? You didn't know the tardis was broken and they're in a parallel universe where Rose's Dad is a success? didn't you watch that 30 second teaser last week? It explained everything!)

Introduce the Preachers and examine their struggle in the less-than 2 minute pretitle?? I just don't see how that can be MORE effective from a narrative standpoint than what we already get. We see streets full of people getting their ear-pod downloads, homeless people getting kidnapped and Mickey having a nice chat with his gran - setting the stage to him being grabbed and tossed into a black van - it's all story building. Just not a build-up towards a cyberman surprise.

I love the amnesia and the steamboat idea you had Darth, but I'm just not with you on this one. Not only do I not feel the episode needed more cyberman momentum, I don't see how any of those changes make any sense on the Pete Tyler level you mention.

And let us not forget, we did eventually get a very BIG surprise baddie at the end of Army of Ghosts.

If Worzel Gummidge and the Third Doctor had a fist fight - who would win?